Youth platform

Besides established artists, many young performers are actively preparing for new shows to be staged during the National Day holiday week and after.

Performing artist and independent producer Wu Yandan, better known by her stage name Nunu Kong, has been trying out ideas for her new solo dance, Grew Up There, for weeks. At the rehearsal studio of Shanghai International Dance Center Theater, Wu has been experimenting with various props, including a long string of connected rubber bands, a basketball and a traffic cone as she plans to use them to show her interaction with different materials. The production, commissioned by Shanghai International Dance Center Theater's Youth Incubation Platform, will be staged over Oct 16-18.

"I had the idea of the dance before the COVID-19 outbreak, and I started to form the dance's concept and design it at home. I did some experiments outside in a park and children's playground in my neighborhood," she says. "I felt lucky to receive the support of the platform and get back to the stage."

The platform was officially launched in 2019 but the theater's initiative to support emerging artists started in 2017, providing rehearsal space, promotion and support crew for artists. The theater has been introducing one or two of its productions every month since August.

Chen Li, project director, Shanghai International Dance Center Theater, says the platform has received around 80 applications since last year and commissioned 10 artists to develop their projects and perform at the theater.

"Originally we only planned five commissions, but we learned independent artists found it particularly difficult this year due to COVID-19－the closure means no performance and no income for them－so we expanded our program to include more artists," she says.

A graduate of Shanghai Theatre Academy, choreographer Jiang Fan was one of the first commissioned artists by the theater. Her last production Web Traffic, which portrays the life of an internet celebrity, received a lot of attention when played onstage in the past two years. During the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, Jiang stayed at home and worked on a new production on the relationship of people with the virtual world.

"During the pandemic, people are confined at home, and many experiences and social interactions take place online. I started to think what life would be like in decades to come," Jiang says. "Maybe this is how most people will live in the future."

The new show is scheduled for December, and Jiang says she will act as "a programmer searching for the meaning of love in a world of codes".

Jiang says the first half of this year was pretty tough for performers, but she now feels that things are going in a good direction.

"More new shows are being played in theaters, and the audience is coming back－from 30 percent to 50 percent and more," she says, referring to the gradual loosening of seat quotas.

"Some worry that when people get used to living in the virtual world, they will not go back to theaters," she says.

"But many friends say they want to go watch shows offline badly.

"No matter how technology advances, we are human, not codes. We need to feel through breath and touch－maybe this is what love is all about."

Contact the writer at [email protected]